Trident Yorkshire Youth at Halifax Sailing Club
by Adrienne Benson 13 Jun 2004 16:00 BST
12 June 2004
A brisk breeze for the Trident Yorkshire Youth at Halifax Sailing Club © Jonathan Lister
Saturday 12th June was a day of thrills, spills and accidental decapitation of the committee boat. Halifax did not disappoint the 38 youngsters who came for the wind. All bar one of the Laser fleet changed down a rig and the 4.7s put in their first appearance of 2004. After an aborted first start, the first race was emphatically won by Chris Duffin (Radial) with James Lewis and Tom Hindson (Radials) a minute behind on corrected time. Despite sailing one lap less, Anthony Murray (Topper) revelled in the conditions to snaffle fourth.
The high spot of Race 2 was a consummate performance of aquabatics on the start line by Cheryl Wood (Radial) who, with split second timing, capsized onto the committee boat a second before the start gun, bending their mast through 90 degrees and carrying away all the signal flags. Captured on video, look out for it on ‘You’ve been framed’! The race leaders remained the same, in the same order but this time fourth was taken by Will Crossley (Radial). Race 3 followed the same pattern but again the order was slightly different. Lewis won, with Duffin, Hindson, and Crossley all finishing within a minute of each other. On corrected time Crossley and Hindson were split by Murray.
It looks like Chris Duffin has the 2004 Travellers’ Series in the bag but on paper James Lewis and the Vernon brothers could still beat him. The next event, at Pennine SC on behalf of blue-green infested Welton, is Lewis’s home territory so Duffin cannot afford to relax.
Overall Results:
1st Chris Duffin, Laser Radial (Beaver)
2nd James Lewis, Laser Radial (Pennine)
3rd Tom Hindson, Laser Radial (Welton)
4th Anthony Murray, Topper (Ogston)
5th Andrew Tunnicliffe, Laser (Burwain)
6th Dan and Sean Vernon, RS200 (Rotherham)